


1989-2016: The Missing Years

by hiikigane



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Memory Loss, Unrequited(?) Love, can get a bit angsty at times sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-31 23:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21280820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiikigane/pseuds/hiikigane
Summary: After the first battle, the Losers' Club drift apart. Richie finds the ghosts of his past a lot harder to run away from than he believed them to be.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. 1989

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to explore the themes of forgetting and growing apart. Again, I haven't had the chance to rewatch/reread the source material, so I'm kinda winging it a bit! I learned a lot from this, but my main takeaway is that Richie shouldn't be in sad boi mode. It's too heart-wrenching to be allowed.

Perhaps it was in Richie's flighty, restless nature not to hold on to things or attachments, but he hadn't been too surprised when the Losers started drifting apart almost immediately afterward. Perhaps he had even been subconsciously waiting for it to happen. They might have walked through hell together and lived to tell the tale, but a carelessly scrawled "friends forever" in the corner of a yearbook, friendship bands, even an oath made with blood—do not an unbreakable bond make. Ultimately, they were still children, thirteen-year-olds subject to the whims and fancies of their parents. As Bill was the one who'd brought them together, so it was Bill who cut the first string.

  
  
**Summer 1989: After**

  
"I'm not c-coming back to school this fall."

  
The remaining days of summer had passed in a languid blur of swimming in the quarry, sharing their favorite cassettes for the day's playlist, and occasionally pooling money together to buy snacks and movie tickets. Every morning Richie woke up, the details of that day grew a little murkier, like the sewer water that flowed through the pipes deep under the roads of Derry. The occasional jarring images that flashed through his mind amidst the collective flotsam of his thoughts—a blood-stained rain slicker, the metallic glint of a gun barrel—were easy enough to steer his mind away from in the light of the day, and the healing cut on his palm barely twinged anymore. Besides, in this last week of vacation, he was more preoccupied with the end of summer than anything.

  
"Running away to join the circus, Billiam?"

  
Bill quelled him with a look. Bill was one of the few people in the world who could shut Richie up just by looking at him in a certain way. Besides, the thought of a "circus" suddenly filled Richie with dread, and he decided that he didn't want to go down that particular rabbit hole, not on this fine day.

  
"Why not?" Ben asked mildly, looking up from his book.

  
They were sitting amidst the trees in the Barrens, just outside the clubhouse. It was weird because they had originally built it to hide themselves from prying eyes, but now they usually ended up outside as the day progressed. The clubhouse, which had been a welcoming sanctuary before, now gave them the claustrophobic feeling of being locked in a tomb. So today, when Bev had heaved the trapdoor open so she could climb out for a smoke, everyone had been right on her heels.

  
Besides, the biggest threat to their fun and games had been arrested on multiple murder charges.

  
(A voice in the deepest, darkest part of Richie's mind said it wasn't as straightforward as that, that Bowers had been a grade-A prick, but not the sort of prick to rip a kid's head off their neck and dump their mutilated corpse in the river. However, it was very easy to ignore that voice and take pleasure in the simple fact that he was finally out of their lives for good.)

  
"We're m-moving. To Wisconsin, I think. M-my dad's working out the details, but we're definitely leaving Derry."

  
"What the fuck is there to do in Wisconsin?" Richie demanded.

  
"It’s not the most well-known state, but it’s interesting enough," Ben said. "The House on the Rock is fascinating from an architectural perspective and there are lots of museums that showcase items related to local history."

  
"Nerd," Richie coughed, and Ben just shrugged and returned to his book.

  
"This is for you, Ben," Eddie said, then turned and socked Richie with his good arm. It didn't really hurt, but Richie grabbed his side and pretended to cough up blood all over Eddie, who struggled to push him away.

  
"Guys," Bev said exasperatedly. "Bill was talking."

  
They quieted down.

  
Bill fidgeted under their renewed attention. "Um, y-yeah. That's all I had to say.”

  
"Why now, though?" Eddie asked. Richie was still leaning against him and despite the heat, neither of them moved.

  
"It's b-been building up for a while. I think they j-just want to get away from all the bad memories here."

  
_Georgie_, Richie thought. It always came back to Georgie. He was gone, yet Bill's family continued to orbit around the empty space he had inhabited. Richie wasn't sure Bill himself was entirely over it, despite everything that had happened over the summer.

  
_(What exactly happened, anyway? I think Georgie was there, but that's impossible. He's dead. Right?)  
_

  
"We'll miss you, Bill," Ben said sincerely.

  
"On that subject..." Bev twisted her ring-encrusted fingers together. "I may be moving too. My father," she hesitated, "needs to spend more time in the hospital, so my aunt in Chicago offered to take me in. To be honest, I'd much rather live with her."

  
"That's great," Richie said in a rare display of seriousness. He prided himself on being able to see humor in anything even if, as it so often turned out, he was the only one laughing. But there was nothing funny about Mr. Marsh. The male Losers had never interacted with him before (Bev had emphasized their need to stay away, for her sake), but he seemed oddly possessive of his daughter. At least Eddie's mother was somewhat funny in her over-the-top displays of hysteria, tirades and fussing.

  
Stan slid a bookmark into the book about birds in Asia that he had taken from Ben's pile. "Moving sounds like a chance for a fresh start."

  
"It does," Beverly agreed, a flush of hope across her cheeks. Or maybe she was just sunburned. White skin tanned easier, Mike had said by way of explaining why he was the only one out of the group that hadn't gotten burned after a day of swimming in the sun. Richie remembered opening his mouth to make a snarky remark and being pre-empted by a sharp smack from Eddie. _That_ had hurt. Sunburns were no joke.

  
"I'd love to get out of Derry," Stan said wistfully.

  
"Where would you go?" Mike asked curiously.

  
"You should go to Israel. That's where all the Jews are."

  
Stan flipped Richie off, prompting a loud (and very bad) imitation of Stan's father complaining about his son's terrible manners. Over the exaggerated exclamations of Stan being a disgrace to his Jewish heritage, Stan said, "Georgia. I want to see the birds there."

  
"If you want to see other forms of wildlife on top of birds, you should go to Arizona. There are so many national parks there and the natural scenery is amazing," Ben said.

  
"I've read about that," Stan agreed, and the group broke off into separate conversations from there. Stan, Ben and Mike started talking about places they would like to visit, while Bev and Bill chatted about life beyond Derry in an overly casual manner that didn't fool Richie in the slightest. The two of them had been dancing around each other all summer in a way that reminded him of the will-he-won't-he courtship rituals of Greta Bowie and her in-crowd. He supposed they might exchange addresses and try to keep in touch, but this little spark of puppy love would soon fizzle out.

_Speaking of puppy love…_

  
"So, Eds, any big plans for moving?"

  
Eddie looked up from his fanny pack. He had been rummaging through it one-handed, looking for his pill box. "Where the fuck would I go, dumbass?"

  
"Oh, you didn't know? Your mom and I are eloping to Hawaii! You're gonna have to call me Daddy real soon!"

  
"I call you a lot of things, but I'll never call you Daddy." He found the box, pulled a pink capsule out of the neatly arranged compartments and swallowed it dry with the well-practiced familiarity of someone who had been eating pills since he was able to take solid food. Given what Richie knew about Mrs. Kaspbrak, it probably wasn't far from the truth.

  
"Really? 'Cause your mom's only too happy to call me Big Daddy when I'm giving her a little lovin' with my huge dong."

  
"Gross," Eddie sighed.

  
"What's eating you, Eds?"

  
"What do you mean?"

  
"You got all angsty after I mentioned Hawaii."

  
Eddie looked into Richie's eyes for a moment, trying to gauge if this was a serious question or the build-up to another joke. Then he sighed. "I'd love to go to Hawaii someday, but I'll probably never get to go. My mom's got a thing about tropical climates and diseases."

  
"Nothing stopping you from going on your own, is there?"

  
"You think she'll ever let me hop on a plane on my own? I'll probably end up attending the University of Maine and driving home every weekend. Not everyone's parents are as chill as yours, Richie."

  
Richie knew he had lucked out on the parental front. Compared to creepy Mr. Marsh, hysterical Mrs. Kaspbrak or even Bill's parents, who had drifted off into their own bubbles of grief after Georgie's death, his own parents were saints, giving him enough space to navigate adolescence without smothering his individuality. They got on his case when teachers sent home report cards with remarks like "Richard is an intelligent student but needs to learn impulse control and stop disrupting the learning of his fellow classmates", but overall, he loved them and showed it as much as a teenage boy could. He couldn't imagine growing up under the thumb of someone as stifling as Mrs. Kaspbrak. "We could go to Hawaii when you turn eighteen. She can't tell you what to do then."

  
Eddie snorted. "Do you even _know_ my mom, Trashmouth? She's never going to let me go, whether I'm eighteen or twenty-eight. I'll always be the loser Mama's boy."

  
Richie had been all but ready to jump in with a quip that _of course _he knew Eddie's mother intimately, but the misery that tinged Eddie's words stopped him. His gaze flitted down to Eddie's cast and the fading LOSER printed on it. "You're not a loser. You're brave, Eds. You looked fear in the face and spat at it. We all did, remember?"

  
Eddie frowned, but Richie could tell it wasn't a brush-off. He was trying to pull fragments of memory from that day into a cohesive image of how exactly he had spat in the face of fear. Richie knew that feeling of grasping at smoke. He knew for sure, however, that Eddie had been brave.

  
"Besides, we're all losers, remember?"

  
"We're the Losers' Club," Eddie agreed. He was finally smiling, and that shy smile caused Richie's heart to thud erratically. He decided not to focus on that (maybe the whiskey he'd stolen from his father's cupboard back home and had been intermittently sipping all morning was finally seeping into his bloodstream), and instead concentrated on the contentment he felt from the warmth of Eddie's body pressed against his.

** Winter 1989 **

  
"Merry Christmas, Staniel!"

  
"First of all, it's not Christmas yet. Second, I don't celebrate it. Third, this is a secular gift exchange at your house."

  
"Aw, you know what I mean." Richie slung a hand over Stan's shoulders and guided him through the front door. "We haven't hung out in ages. I don't think I've even seen you around since summer."

  
"I've been studying. Classes are a lot harder this year, and not all of us can coast through with a B average without cracking open a book."

  
"Well, it's certainly true that not everyone can be as devilishly handsome and clever as me." Richie preened a little before focusing on the bag in Stan's hands. "Presents!"

  
"Not till everyone gets here." Stan smacked his roving hands away. "Seriously, Richie, you're a terrible host. You didn't even offer to help me hang up my coat."

  
"Jeez, Stan, you've got hands, haven't you?"

  
"It's only polite to ask." Stan took off his coat and hung it neatly on the hook that Richie never used. "Are the rest on the way?"

  
"Yeah. All the Losers—the five of us still in Derry, anyway—will finally be in the same room together for the first time since August."

  
"I heard Mike started working part-time at the library on top of helping his uncle with the meat deliveries."

  
"Well, that explains why I haven't seen him around either. I would never voluntarily set foot in a library."

  
"That's hardly something to be proud of," said another voice. The two of them spun around, and Richie beamed. "Haystack! Another missing motherfucker! Never thought it would be so hard to find a fat person, it's not like you'd be able to fit in most hiding spaces."

  
"Richie," Stan hissed. "_Look_ at him."

  
"Who? Holy shit, Haystack! Did you get flattened out by a road roller?"

  
Ben had just removed his winter clothes. Underneath the puffy jackets, earmuffs and scarf, he was noticeably slimmer—still not as thin as Richie, who was growing so fast he looked like a comically stretched out cartoon figure, but the paunch that used to precede him through any door was gone. "I started exercising and eating more healthily."

  
"Well, you're gonna have to make an exception for today. It's Christmas!"

  
"Once again, Richard, it's not Christmas yet," Stan said snippily.

  
"I don't mind eating whatever you have," Ben said agreeably. "But I brought some food too because based on what I remember, there's never any good food in your house unless your mother's gone grocery shopping."

  
"Ol' Reliable Haystack," Richie began, then scowled as Ben started pulling things out of his backpack. "What the fuck are those?"

  
"Mixed nuts, cucumber slices with black bean dip, unsalted crackers..."

  
"That's it, I'm ordering pizzas."  
  
"Chill out, Trashmouth. I've got snacks from when I cleared out the cupboard at home. They're due to expire..." Ben checked the label on a packet of nacho cheese Doritos, "three days from now, so today's a great day to finish them off."

  
"_Thank_ you," Richie said pointedly, ripping open the bag with his teeth just as the door opened again and Eddie and Mike walked in.

  
"Rich, that's fucking disgusting! When was the last time you brushed your teeth?"

  
"Oh, probably after I ate your mom out last night."

  
"Fuck you!"

  
"I really didn't need that image in my head, Richie," Mike said, but his eyes glinted with amusement all the same.

  
"Mikey, my token black friend! I heard you've turned into a library nerd since the summer. Don't you get enough readings at home-school? Or are you trying to get into the library's hidden stash of porno mags?"

  
"There are more books in the world than those on the assigned reading list," Mike said dryly. "Besides, if there really were porn magazines in the library, I'm sure you'd have shot your seed all over them."

  
"Zing! Mikey gets off a good one!"

  
"Don't encourage him, Mike!" Eddie griped.

  
"Aw, getting lonely, Eds? I could never forget you."

  
"I wish you would," Eddie grumbled, but there was no heat behind those words and he allowed Richie to tousle his hair.

  
As the party of five ate their way through Ben's snacks and exclaimed over their presents, Richie found himself wishing that he _did_ believe in unbreakable bonds. On the surface, they had fallen back into the easy friendship they shared. But he couldn't help feeling that whatever strange glue had held such diverse, sometimes conflicting, personalities together was dissolving. They were growing apart. He wondered why that prospect made him feel lonelier than ever.  
  
_It can't be summer forever._


	2. 1992-1994

** Spring 1992 **

  
_Thunk. Thunk. Thunk._

  
The shadowy figure shifted, turning away from the noise.

  
_Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.  
_

  
More shifting, then rustling as the figure pulled itself upright and staggered in the direction of the noise. As it drew closer to the window, the moonlight illuminated a rumpled head of brown hair and drowsy, half-open eyes, which quickly sparked to life at the sight of the person outside the window.

  
"What the fuck are you doing here?"

  
Richie smiled sheepishly. "Uh, to bang your mom?"

  
Eddie made to slam the window shut. Richie hurriedly said, "Okay, okay. I'm here to see you. I can't sleep."

  
"I was sleeping perfectly fine till you woke me up! It's three fucking a.m.!"

  
"And I was hoping I could borrow your mom's car keys for a late-night drive."

  
"_Fuck_ no! Wait, what happened to your car? Did you get in an accident? Are you hurt?"

  
"My parents took the keys."

  
Eddie let out a snort of laughter. "What did you do?"

  
"Nothing!"

  
"Yeah, right."

  
"It's true! Okay, so my mom found a pack of cigarettes in my drawer, but they're an old pack. I haven't smoked in years! I told her that and she got even more pissed off."

"Um, obviously she was pissed that you've been smoking for years..."

  
"But I haven't! I only smoked for a couple of months that summer, with... Bev, was it? I should never have kept that pack. Now I can't drive for two weeks." Richie sank into an aggrieved silence that lasted for all of five seconds. "So yeah, I need your mom's car keys."

  
"Why would I get them for you?"

  
"Because I'm taking you with me on an exclusive midnight drive through Derry. We can get some snacks from the convenience store, get drunk on cheap beer, see the sights..."

  
"I don't trust you behind the wheel at night."

  
"Aw, Eds! I have a license and everything! And it's technically safer to drive at a time like this when no one's on the roads, right?"

  
"Don't we have school tomorrow?"

  
"I'm skipping. If you're really concerned about that, tell your mom your throat feels itchy, she'll keep you home."

  
"You mean she'll drive me to the hospital and force the doctors to check me for throat cancer and a million other illnesses. I don't get to spend sick days just lounging around, you know."

  
"Then go to school and sleep. I personally like the area under the bleachers."

  
"And skip class?"

  
"Eds, live a little! Please?" Richie put on the puppy-dog expression he hadn't used in years (it didn't work on his parents anymore and it had never worked on Eddie before, but short of climbing through the window and stumbling blindly through Eddie's house to get to his mother's room, he was out of ideas).

  
Eddie ran a hand through his sleep-mussed hair in exasperation. "God, you're so annoying. Fine, I'll see if I can find her keys. But I'm not going to look very hard."

  
"My hero," Richie said dramatically, fluttering his eyelashes. "The Superman to my Lois Lane, the Spiderman to my Mary Jane, the..."

  
"The bane of my existence," Eddie muttered, and stomped out of his room.

  
Five minutes later, Richie was gleefully unlocking the door of Mrs. Kaspbrak's ancient Volvo and steering it out of the driveway at a respectable speed. He maintained it until they had left Eddie's street then hit the accelerator hard, causing Eddie to be pushed back against his seat as the car surged forward.

  
"You'd better not go too fast," Eddie warned as Richie steered with one hand and messed with the radio dials with the other. "I'm gonna kill you if you wreck the car."

  
"Yeah, yeah." Richie settled on a classic rock station and put both hands back on the wheel. "So, our first stop—the convenience store, for booze and snacks."

  
"Won't they ask you for ID?"

  
"What, I don't exude the manly charm of an adult?"

  
"You've got to be kidding me," Eddie said, but there was a smile in his voice.

As it turned out, the indifferent middle-aged man who usually turned a blind eye to Richie's obvious youth wasn't on duty, and the teenager at the counter refused to even look at his fake ID ("Look kid, we go to the same damn school and I really need this job. Just buy some soda, okay?"). They left the store with two bulging bags of potato chips and candy which Eddie paid for using the money in his mother's car because Richie, naturally, had left his wallet at home.

  
Being able to drive opened up more options, allowing them to traverse the town faster and more comfortably than when bicycles had been their main means of transport. But tonight, Richie wasn't interested in seeing if he could bend any more rules with his fake ID. He just wanted to get out of the house, and what was the point of any adventure without Eddie?

  
Allowing his thoughts about Eddie to wander too far could be dangerous, so Richie tried to focus on the here and now. Eddie was sitting next to him, strapped firmly into the passenger seat with two huge plastic bags in his lap. He had grabbed a jacket on the way out but hadn't bothered to change into pants, so his legs were bare. Richie wondered if he was wearing the same pair of shorts from that summer—it was probably just right for sleepwear, since Eddie had hardly grown since then.

  
He shook his head, forcing his thoughts away from Eddie's legs to the other people in their group—Bill, Bev, Stan, Ben and Mike, but their faces were about as clear as a silhouette through frosted glass. Bill and Bev had moved years ago, and Ben had disappeared about a year and a half ago. That hadn't surprised him too much, because Ben's family was constantly on the move and he had also been new to Derry that summer. But when was the last time he had spoken to any of them?

  
"Hey, Eds. Do you know what Stan or Mike are up to?"

  
"My mother mentioned that Rabbi Uris had been called to serve at a synagogue in another town with a larger Jewish population."

  
"So is he still in Derry, or...?"

  
"I don't think so. She said..." Eddie frowned. "I don't want to repeat what she said, but it seems like he doesn't think he's doing any good staying in Derry."

  
"So Stan's gone? Just like that?"

  
"I guess. He wouldn't have wanted to make a big production out of leaving."

  
"I suppose not," Richie grumbled. "But we're dropping like flies, aren't we? I don't blame him for wanting to leave this shithole. But he could have said something."

  
Eddie smirked. "You're just jealous he got to leave first."

  
"Jealous? _Moi_? Eds, the only person I'm jealous of is you. Sharing a house with a voluptuous woman whose ass jiggles with every step she takes... the way she screams my name in bed... oh, I'm getting hard just thinking about her!"

  
"Beep beep, Richie," Eddie growled.

  
Richie dropped the subject, but only because a better idea had just occurred to him. "Hey, let's go visit Mike."

"What?"

  
"Mike! He's still around, right? Let's go say hi!"

  
"Are you crazy? It's three-thirty a.m.! He's probably asleep, like a normal person!"

  
"He can wake up. You're awake, aren't you?"

  
"I don't know. Being stuck in a car with you feels like a nightmare, as if I didn't already have to see your ugly face every day at school."

  
"Eds, you wound me."

  
"Good," Eddie snapped. "Seriously though, now's not a good time to visit Mike. His grandfather might think we're trying to vandalize their property and blow our heads off with his gun, especially if you break his fucking window throwing rocks at it."

  
Richie pouted, but realized Eddie had a point. His memories of Mike were hazy, but he remembered enough to know that despite having been here forever, Mike and his grandfather maintained a certain wariness toward the people of Derry. Their reasons for staying on the edge of town instead of one of the suburban developments was a lot more complicated than just needing a large plot of land for their farm. They had resigned themselves to the fact that people in town would never fully accept them, and Mike's grandfather would definitely be inclined to think the worst if two white boys showed up in the dead of the night armed with rocks.

  
"So visiting Mike is out. What should we do?"

  
"You're the one who dragged me out of bed! I thought you had a plan!"

  
_I just wanted to spend time with you_, Richie thought, but kept the words to himself. "There definitely aren't any movies playing at the drive-in theater now, but we have snacks. We could park there and eat."

  
Eddie shrugged. "Fine. But let's just have a sleepover next time, okay? It's more fun when there's actually something to watch."

  
Richie tried to ignore how his heart rate had spiked at the word "sleepover". They had had plenty of those when they were younger, and literally all they had done was _sleep!_ Damn puberty and hormones and all of that. "What are you, twelve? The cool kids don't have sleepovers anymore. Now, it's all about sleeping but not actually _sleeping_, if you know what I mean."

  
"I do know what you mean, but it sounds disgusting when you say it. And what would _you_ know about sex?"

  
_Enough to know that when I picture doing it, it's not with a girl_. "Lots. Your mom and I practically worked through the _Kama Sutra _last night, Eduardo."

  
"Sometimes I really hate you."  
  
But his aversion to Richie didn't extend far enough to prevent him from falling asleep on Richie's shoulder an hour later, midway through a conversation about college and the future.

  
  
**Summer 1994**

  
Richie fidgeted impatiently. Everyone made such a big deal about graduation— a milestone, a final farewell to adolescence, a _giant fucking bore_. The only reason he was even attending the ceremony was for the sake of his parents, who wanted a photo of their only son in a cap and gown. They had accepted that this was probably the only photo they would ever have of him in graduation garb, since Richie wasn't planning on going to college. He was leaving for California to try and get a foot into the world of stand-up comedy. But before that, there was something very important he needed to do.

  
As the ceremony finally came to an end and everyone tossed their caps into the air, he sidled up to Eddie and tossed an arm over his shoulders. "Happy graduation, Eds!"

  
Eddie turned around, startled, then smiled. "Happy graduation, Rich. Hey, shouldn't we go find our families?"

  
Richie nodded. "Of course. I'm sure Mrs K. wants to give me a congratulatory kiss."

  
"If you put your mouth anywhere near her, she'll slap the shit out of you. She hates your guts."

  
"It's a clever front to conceal the passion she feels for me. Anyway, do you remember the clubhouse we used to play at when we were younger? Meet me there after you're done with family stuff. I've got something for you."

  
"But I didn't get you anything," Eddie protested.

  
Richie bent to pinch his cheek. "It's fine. Your presence is a gift in and of itself, Eds. See you later!" He wove his way through the crowd before Eddie could respond.

  
The sun was setting by the time Richie made it to the Barrens, panting and clutching a stitch in his side. He should have expected this—of course all the families would be crowding up the fancy restaurants for a post-graduation meal and there weren't that many in Derry to begin with, meaning a simple one-hour meal could easily take three times as long. He’d also had to put up with posing for pictures, but that hadn’t been too bad because he’d gotten to take a picture with Eddie before Mrs. Kaspbrak stepped in. Two, actually—he had insisted they take one without the stupid gowns. He would have to ask his mother for the photos once she got them developed.

  
Eddie was sitting under the trees, still in the formal long-sleeved shirt and pants he had been wearing under his gown. Richie hadn’t bothered with formal clothing, since it wasn’t like anyone would be able to tell he was wearing a faded band T-shirt and ripped jeans underneath the gown. Eddie looked up at the sound of leaves crunching underfoot. “Hey.” 

  
“Sorry I’m late,” Richie panted.

  
“It’s fine, I just got here myself.”

  
A slightly awkward silence fell. Eddie broke it by getting up and walking to a spot which, at first glance, looked exactly like the surrounding muddy, leaf-strewn forest floor but upon closer inspection, turned out to be a wooden trapdoor. "I wonder why we stopped coming here."

  
"Probably because we found better things to do with our time. How does this thing work again?" Richie curled his fingers around the rusty metal ring and pulled. The door creaked open, revealing a ladder leading into a hole in the ground.

  
"Let's not go down there. It's getting dark," Eddie said nervously.

  
Richie agreed. He had forgotten that they used to play there in the day, relying on natural light to make up for the poor visibility underground. He also wasn't too thrilled with the idea of crawling inside a dark hole with the sun setting around them. It felt too much like being buried alive, and Derry was stifling enough as it was. He allowed the trapdoor to fall back into place with a soft thump. "So, your graduation gift!" He stuck his hand into the back pocket of his jeans and fished out two crumpled pieces of paper. "Ta-daa!"

  
Eddie squinted at the fine print. "Are those receipts?"

  
"Shit. Hang on..." He checked his other pocket and came up with another two pieces of paper. "Your _real_ graduation gift."

  
Eddie's eyes widened as he took in the details. "Richie..."

  
"I know, I know. I'll gladly accept any form of thanks you're willing to give. A hug, a kiss, an open invitation to swing by your house for a romantic dinner with your mom..."

  
"Richie, I can't go."

  
"You won't believe how expensive plane tickets to Hawaii are, even if you buy them months in advance! All the money that could have gone into arcade games, weed and hookers, channeled into this plane ticket fund. You... wait, what?"

  
"I can't go." Eddie's voice wavered slightly, but the words came out certain enough. "I have to prepare to move to college."

  
"Aw, that's easy enough! I'm moving to California too, remember? And you're not exactly moving that far. I still can't believe you're going to NYU! Not that you aren't smart enough, but little ol' Eds, living the big city life! It's enough to bring a tear to my eye."

  
Eddie stayed silent. Richie babbled on, "And you don't have to worry, I checked the dates for moving in and the start of semester. There'll be plenty of time for you to come back, unpack your bags and then pack 'em again to move. I'll be heading straight to California from Hawaii, but it's not like I'm bringing a lot of things with me. It's the start of a whole new life!"

  
"Richie..."

  
"We're going to have so much fun. It'll help you loosen up a little before school starts, but don't go _too_ crazy, okay? I'll even carry a fanny pack full of inhalers in case the sea air triggers your asthma or whatever—"

  
_"Richie!"  
_

  
Richie fell silent. Eddie was playing with the hem of his shirt, which had come untucked with all his fidgeting. It was also where his fanny pack usually resided on normal days.

  
"Richie, I really...I can't just drop everything and fly off to Hawaii. My mother won't let me go, and besides, she needs me."

  
"Surely a week without you isn't going to kill her. It's not like she's gonna be living with you in the student dorms, is she?"

Eddie winced. "Of course not. But she's looking into buying a place in New York, and it's precisely because I'm moving out that she'll want to spend more time with me before that."

  
"She can spend time with you after you come back."

  
"It's not just that. I can't... I can't do this. Whatever it is you're proposing, we shouldn't be doing it. I wish you'd told me before you bought the tickets."

  
Richie's breath caught in his throat. He had been so caught up in saving money for the tickets, in looking up things to do in Hawaii, that rejection hadn't even occurred to him. He would have been prepared to argue, to needle and annoy Eddie until he gave in, if it weren't for the _whatever it is you're proposing_ part. Eddie wasn't stupid, he had seen through Richie's secret and was saying no. This was everything Richie had been afraid of.

  
And Eddie was already starting to look at him differently, with pity in his gaze. Eddie never looked at him like that. Annoyance, anger, sometimes affection, but never pity. At least there wasn't hatred or fear; he might never be able to recover from that. He could still walk out of this with some dignity intact, cradling the broken pieces of his heart close.

  
"Richie, I..."

  
"It's cool. I'll give the tickets to my parents. They'll be glad to have a second honeymoon, and I can have the house to myself before I leave for good."

  
"Please don't be mad."

  
"I'm not mad," Richie said, but the words sounded forced, even to his ears. He tried to inject sincerity into his voice. "I could never be mad at you, Eds."

  
"You know you mean a lot to me, right?"

  
_But your mother matters more_. Richie struggled to keep the bitterness at bay. Mrs. Kaspbrak loathed him and all jokes aside, the feeling was mutual. She had used inhalers, vitamins and pills to nurture a bizarre, codependent relationship with Eddie that any psychologist would have a field day with. But if Eddie cared about her, who was he to storm into their house and demand that she butt out of his life?

  
"You mean a lot to me too," Richie said, and he was sure Eddie would be able to hear the desperation and need in his voice. In that moment, he hated himself for not being able to let go. The Losers had drifted apart, but a part of him had always seen himself and Eddie as a smaller unit within the group, sacrosanct and untouchable. Which was stupid and selfish, because who was the one fucking off to the opposite end of the country? What exactly was he hoping to get out of a week out of this town with Eddie?

  
The answer to this was simple, but Richie didn't want to start hacking away at the tangled threads of this mess now. Not when his heart was crumbling to pieces.

  
"We'll stay in touch. Write or call or whatever. That's what we were planning to do, right?"

  
"Of course. I wouldn't last a week without some sweet phone sex with your mom." The joke fell flat, and Eddie didn't even react to it.

  
"She needs me." Eddie's voice was barely audible by this point. "You understand, right? It's always just been the two of us."

  
_It was always just the two of us too. But I guess it only felt that way to me_. "Of course."

  
"Call me before you leave for California."

  
"Of course."

  
Neither of them did.  



	3. 1998-2005

**Winter 1998**  
  
The familiar, piercing ringtone of Richie's Nokia sliced through the air, pulling him out of a dark, dreamless sleep. He stumbled to the dresser and jabbed blindly at buttons until he found the correct one. "Hello?"

  
"Richard, my son!"

  
Richie seriously considered hanging up before it occurred to him that in his groggy state, he would probably end up pressing every button but the correct one. "It's too early for this, Dad."

  
"I happen to know it's eleven a.m. in California. You should be balls deep in work by now!"

  
"I work at night," Richie groaned. He had been operating on a nocturnal schedule since moving to California, since that was when most of the clubs or bars that hosted stand-up comedy acts came alive. Four years on, he was well-known enough in the community that he didn't have to take on graveyard shift performances or try to tone down his act in order to appear at more family-friendly establishments, but he still worked the more obscure venues when he could. The smaller audience reminded him of a time in the distant past when the only people privy to his jokes had been two boys and a girl. Or had it been four boys and two girls? Whatever it was, he remembered having a decidedly unamused audience as a kid. One person in particular had had no qualms about telling him to go fuck himself. He smiled at the thought.

  
"Richie? Are you asleep?"

  
"I was."

  
"Well, now that you're up, you might as well tell me if you're coming to our neck of the woods for Christmas! Your mother wants to know whether to set the table for one family disappointment."

  
"Ha ha," Richie said flatly. "I'm glad I didn't inherit your sense of humor."

  
"Ah, but I'm sure you did. That's why you're doing so well now, aren't you?"

  
"Well..." Richie flung himself back on the bed, settling in for a long conversation. "I may have a television appearance lined up. It all depends on what the director says. I haven't called him yet."

  
"Why the hell not?"

  
"Because..." Richie didn't know how to answer that. A television appearance was every aspiring entertainer's dream. If he played his cards right, it could lead to many things—guest appearances on shows people actually watched, comedy roles, maybe even his own show. But now that the chance had finally arrived, he suddenly wasn't sure if he wanted to put himself out there. Everyone would be watching, waiting for just the right moment to dust off the skeletons in his closet. He didn't remember much about life before California, but something he was deeply ashamed of had happened. He supposed he hadn’t murdered someone, that was too much even for him—but the fact that he didn't remember was proof enough that it had been bad enough to repress.

  
"Because what? Richie, you'd better not fall asleep on me again."

  
_Faggot_, a voice hissed across the hazy gap in his memory, and Richie's grip on the phone tightened. "I'm not asleep."

  
"Good! So you can answer my questions. Why aren't you jumping to appear on television? I didn't put up with twenty-two years of shitty jokes for you to abandon ship when someone actually wants to hear said shitty jokes."

  
"They've been listening to my shitty jokes for years, Dad. It's just a different platform."

  
"A platform you should make full use of! You don't have to be a superstar. All you ever wanted was a stage to perform on, right? God only knows how much you annoyed your friends back in the day."

  
_"Just you wait, Eds. I'm gonna be a star, and you'll be begging me for an autograph then."  
_

  
_ "The only thing I want from you now is some fucking peace and quiet, Trashmouth."_

  
"What do you remember about my friends, Dad?"

  
"Come again?"

  
"My friends. The ones you say I annoyed. I don't...I _can't_ remember anything about them." Richie squeezed his eyes shut, willing his brain to conjure up an image of those friends. He had no idea why it was so important all of a sudden, but this inability to remember felt wrong.

  
"Richie, are you on drugs? Because I have nothing against that, but if it's starting to impede your memory..."

  
"No! I mean, the usual amount. I can control myself. I just can't remember anything about my childhood friends. Plenty of people grow up and forget things like that, right?"

  
"Sure they do. But you were really close to these people for a while. We practically had to pry you and this one kid apart with a crowbar... what was his name again?"

  
_Eds_. The name, which had surfaced from out of nowhere, hovered on the far edges of Richie's memory and trembled on the tip of his tongue. But he didn't say it out loud, because the mere thought of this name _(nickname?)_ set off a firestorm of emotions, and the last time he'd worn his heart on his sleeve, it had been torn to pieces. "No idea."

  
"Well, I know what became of at least one of them! He just became a published author!"

  
"An author?"

  
"Yep. A solid debut novel according to reviewers. Their main criticisms are with the ending, but given that he's a new author, they say they're looking forward to future works and all that jazz."

  
"What's his name?"

  
"William Denbrough."

  
_William Denbrough_. Richie tested the name in his head, then out loud. It didn't ring any bells; could have been any random person's name. "I don't remember a William Denbrough."

  
"Well, his name's everywhere right now. Newspaper and magazine articles, even television appearances. A successful young man. You could be like that if you went on television."

  
Richie smiled in spite of himself. "So you just want me to go on TV so you can brag about having a famous son?"

  
"Don't all parents like to brag about their children's achievements?"

  
"I should be able to squeeze in a DUI so you have something to talk about."

  
"You do that. Get back to me on Christmas!" His father hung up.

  
Richie nestled deeper into the bed, even though he was now fully awake. The question of whether or not to visit his parents for Christmas was easy enough; they were still back in Maine and he didn't want to go back. He didn't know what his aversion to the place was, but it should be easy enough to make up an excuse and get his parents to fly out to meet him instead.

  
He was more preoccupied with the TV thing. It was something he had been working toward his whole life—or at least, he assumed that was the case since he didn't actually remember his childhood. But he had definitely come to California with dreams of making it big. Why the hesitation now?

  
_"W-w-we won't kn-know unless we try."  
_

  
_ "You're the boss, Big Bill."_

  
Could the mysterious Big Bill of his memories be related to William Denbrough? Big Bill sounded like a bad porn name. Richie plumbed his mind for more information but was only able to come up with a sense of calm authority and assurance that was the exact opposite of his own chaotic, tornado-like existence. Perhaps he was overthinking things. It was just a natural progression of his career.

  
_"I could practice signing your mom's lacy underwear."  
_

  
_ "That's so disgusting, Rich! I don't even know what kind of underwear she wears!"_

  
_ "Wanna find out? Let's go grab a pair from her room."_

  
_ "Fuck you, stay where you are!"_

  
Richie sighed. For someone who had a reputation of screwing things up by acting on impulse, he could be awfully uncertain about other things. Maybe he should just go with the flow this time.

  
He heaved himself out of bed and dug through his wallet for the director's card. _Just you wait, Eds. I'm gonna be a star._

  
  
**Fall 2005**

  
"Thanks for coming, Mr. Tozier!"

  
"That's what they all say." Richie winked as the pretty blond woman threw back her head and laughed as though he had just cracked the funniest joke in the world. Today was a relatively relaxed day since he had finished filming his comedy segments for other programmes and filming for the sitcom cameo wasn't due to start yet. All he had was a simple magazine interview. Richie had acted shocked to learn that people actually read non-_Playboy_ magazines these days, but his agent Dan hadn't been amused at all and had launched into a lecture about magazine circulation, readership figures and a whole lot of crap that he didn't particularly care about. He guessed it mattered if your client was a hard-ass micromanager who was picky about the payoff from whatever work they took up, but he was just along for the ride. This approach had worked well enough for the past few years.

  
Richie had gotten used to cameras, studio audiences and the like, or at least as used to them as he could be. He still got nervous before performances, but the adage about doing something until it became second nature held true in this case—it had become a lot easier to flip the switch and turn on his stage persona. At least he could tone that down a little for a one-on-one interview.

  
He went through the interview questions with the blond woman, Sandy, easily enough. Dan had gotten him a copy of the questions in advance and insisted that Richie prepare some answers instead of winging it the way he usually did _("Honestly, Richie! I know being provocative and uncensored is your whole deal, but you can't just shoot your mouth off at the media! Nowadays one wrong word is all it takes, and you'll be out of a job! Is that what you want? Huh? Is it?!"_). Richie had been working with him since his career took off, and it was a little weird that he had stuck with someone so uptight and anxious for so long. But there was something in Dan's mannerisms, his angry rants and grumbling as he worked on Richie's schedule, that was oddly endearing. Sometimes, Richie caught himself wanting to reach out and pinch Dan's cheek or pet him on the head, which was ridiculous because Dan was taller than him. Such behavior also veered into a no-go zone of actions that he had subconsciously drawn over the years. Handshakes, a brotherly punch on the shoulder, even slinging an arm around a guy was fine. Pinching their cheeks or patting them on the head was not.

  
"Any words of advice for our readers?" Sandy asked, wrapping up the interview.

  
"Advice? From me? That's like asking a nun what their favorite sex position is. For the record," Richie paused to waggle his eyebrows salaciously, "I like to do it doggy style."

  
Sandy laughed, and when she reached out to shake his hand, she definitely held on to it longer than necessary.

  
"Off the record, any plans for tonight?"

  
Richie froze in the middle of putting on his coat. He had received his fair share of advances over the years, but tactful rejection in a way that wouldn't draw awkward questions or speculation was always hard. He fell back on his usual methods. "Oh, you know...a book... a nice glass of wine... maybe some HD porn in the background."

  
Sandy laughed again, and Richie forced himself to focus on her hearty laugh and the dimples that flashed in and out of view as she smiled, instead of how he suddenly wished he was someplace else. "Porn is for people who aren't lucky enough to experience the real thing." She extended her hand again. This time, there was a card clasped between her slender, pink nail polish-tipped fingers. "Call me if you change your mind."

  
By this point, Richie had had enough experience to accept the card with a stage smile pasted firmly across his face. He was even able to throw out a non-committal parting joke that sounded genuine. It wasn't until he was back in the safety of his car that he let the card slip from his fingers onto the floor and rested his head on the steering wheel, trying his best not to cry.

* * *

He hadn't been lying about his plans for the night. He might have more flexible working hours and longer periods of downtime in between projects than his dentist father, but when he was on the go, it was extremely intense. After weeks or even months of interacting with different studio crews, different studio audiences and different Hollywood stars, all he wanted was some alone time.

  
_"Alone time? You? That's a good one, Rich. You don't even want to go to the bathroom alone because you want someone to talk to along the way. I thought only girls went in pairs."_

  
"_You_ would know what happens in girls' bathrooms," Richie murmured, aware that he was talking to himself, unsure who he was talking to, but too tired of feeling tired to care.

  
There was no answer from his subconscious, or whatever part of his psyche it was that generated these strange conversations or memories from time to time. He drove back home without incident and was digging through the fridge for some good alcohol when his phone rang. By the time he had tracked it down (it was stuffed in his coat pocket, which was in turn lying on the floor near the door where he had dumped it after entering the house), the ringing had stopped. The display showed a missed call and a voice message, which he played back.

  
"Hey, Richie." Dan's voice, which usually contained a barely held back note of stress, was relaxed and happy. "Just wanted to let you know that I'll be taking next week off. My girlfriend—well, fiancé now—said yes, so I have lots of wedding planning to do. Your schedule for next week is pretty much set—I've called the studio and the club that you insisted on performing at to make sure there aren't going to be any last-minute changes. My assistant will handle things for you while I'm away. Check your phone, l'm sending you her number. Don't you dare delete this message. If you start calling me while I'm in the middle of tuxedo fittings, I'll kill you. Anyway, check your phone."

  
His phone vibrated, signalling the arrival of another message. Richie's fingers twitched and he fought against the temptation to delete everything—the voice message, the text message with the assistant's number, Dan's phone number. He knew he was being unreasonable, but the overwhelming sense of loneliness, of being _different_, that had been eating away at him ever since Sandy had passed him her card was threatening to pull him under. This had absolutely nothing to do with Dan, who had every right to be happy and full of hope for married life. So why did he feel like punching a hole in the wall?

  
_"Get the fuck out of here, you four-eyed faggot."_

  
"I'm not a faggot." There he went, talking to himself again.

  
_"I'll chop your dick off if you try that shit with my cousin again!"  
_

  
"I wasn't doing anything!" Apart from the fact that he might be losing his mind, Richie noticed that his voice seemed to have become higher and shriller. Almost like the cry for help of a pre-pubescent teen. His vision blurred, and he swiped viciously at his eyes. _Fuck_.

  
_"Whatever it is you're proposing, we shouldn't be doing it."_ This was a different voice, lacking the malicious hatred of the other one, but the words hurt even more. Richie was full-on crying now, ugly, chest-heaving sobs that made it hard to breathe. He sank to the floor, taking huge, shuddering breaths and wondering if this was what an asthma attack felt like. He wished he had an inhaler.

  
_"But you don't have asthma, you dumb fuck. Stop wasting my medicine."  
_

  
_ "I just wanted to see how it tastes like! You're always puffing away on that thing like a cigarette. Lemme try."_

_  
"The whole fucking point of an inhaler is to protect me from your stupid cigarette smoke! You'll ruin it!"_

  
Had he used to smoke? Since moving to California, Richie had tried plenty of drugs (in moderation), but was pretty sure that smoking was one vice he hadn't indulged in. Perhaps cigarettes were the only thing he'd been able to get his hands on back in Maine. He wondered who this strange person could be. Smoking around someone with asthma seemed like something he would do. He let out a choked laugh as he imagined this person's reaction to the karmic irony of Richie finally getting a taste of his own medicine. _Ha, who's wheezing _now_, Tozier?_

  
"Fuck you," he muttered, voice still thick with tears but with the trace of a smile on his face. He leaned back against the wall with a sigh, suddenly exhausted. This was not how he had intended to spend his day off.

  
But as tired as he was after that bizarre crying jag, the prospect of curling up in bed for the rest of the day with nothing but his thoughts for company was too much. He should be off enjoying life to the fullest, and he had a good idea where to start.

  
Richie pulled himself off the floor and stumbled to the bathroom. His red, slightly puffy eyes would be back to normal by the time he and Sandy met up, and if they weren't, he could say he'd accidentally stabbed himself trying to put on contact lenses. He wouldn't have to go to great lengths to dress up; he wasn't known for being a fashionista and was sure all she wanted was a chance to brag that she had gotten lucky with Richie Tozier. That was fine with him. A relationship was the last thing on his mind.

  
_Of course not. You don't want a relationship with a woman, do you?  
_

  
Richie pushed that thought firmly away. He was going to call Sandy, right now.

  
Then he swore as he remembered that the card with her number on it was still somewhere in his car.


	4. 2016

** Summer 2016  
**

Many of Richie's fellow stars were on specially prescribed "sleeping pills" because they had trouble falling asleep at night. It sounded like a shady version of Ambien, and Richie had never been tempted because he usually slept like a log. But the temptation to try had been growing in the past few weeks.

  
His nights were now plagued by weird dreams that slipped out of his mind as soon as he woke up. Try as he might to hold on to the details, they were gone by the time he was brushing his teeth. He had gone so far as to try to write them down, but when he set pen to paper, all that had come out was the phrase “come back home”, written in a sharp, jagged font that was completely different from his usual messy scrawl. Creepy as fuck. He had tossed that piece of paper away. An image of a group of children standing in a circle, holding hands, had also started intruding on his thoughts. He couldn't make out their features, but he had noticed other things about them. They were all dressed in outdated, ill-fitting clothes. One of them was a girl. One of them had a cast on his right hand. One of them had thick, unattractive glasses. This image was often accompanied by a wave of dread. He would have written it off as a still from a movie that his brain had, for whatever reason, kept in long-term storage and suddenly decided to dust off, but he had worked in the entertainment industry long enough that watching movies was no longer high on his list of things to do for fun. Also, the fact that they were standing in a circle seemed oddly specific. Like a ritual of sorts.

Richie hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in what felt like forever and was, as a result, grouchy _and_ nervous about his upcoming performance. Most of the studio crew took performers’ bad attitude in stride; but he didn’t want to be a jackass just because people happened to find him funny now. It was the nerves that he was more concerned about—he had stopped writing his own scripts years ago and started to lean into more television-friendly material, which meant he was now closer to an actor delivering lines than a comedian. But unlike in movies where a bad take could be re-shot, live performances had to go perfectly. In the age of social media, anyone could upload a thirty-second clip of his fuck-up, which would then be circulated everywhere and preserved for all eternity online for people to laugh at. Just the thought of all those invisible eyes watching and judging him made him want to throw up.

His fingers drummed out a nervous rhythm on the chair as he looked straight ahead, trying not to move so the makeup artist could work her magic. But then his phone vibrated, and he demonstrated the Pavlovian reaction of every twenty-first century adult by pulling it out of his pocket to check it. “Hello?”

“Hello, is this Richie Tozier?”

“No, my name Jeff,” Richie said smartly, feeling the nerves settle a little as the makeup artist smiled and rolled her eyes at him.

“Richie, stop screwing around. I know it’s you.”

The serious tone prevented Richie from continuing the charade by insisting that his name _was _Jeff. He stayed silent instead as the voice went on. “Richie, do you remember who I am?”

“How the fuck am I supposed to tell by your voice?”

The speaker sighed. “Right. I don’t suppose you would remember after leaving Derry. Even my own memories were hazy for a while, and I’ve stayed all this time. My name is Mike Hanlon. Does that ring any bells?”

_No_, Richie wanted to say, but the word lodged itself in his throat as another wave of dread overwhelmed him. He pictured an African-American boy with close-cropped hair and a solemn expression. Which was strange, because Mike Hanlon’s voice sounded perfectly adult to him.

“Well, you’ll remember in time. You’d lose your mind if all the memories came back at once. But Richie, I need you to come back home. It’s starting again.”

Richie was suddenly acutely aware of the heat radiating from the phone pressed against his ear, because his entire body seemed to have gone cold. “What’s starting again? Look, I don’t know how you got my number but if this is a joke…”

“It’s not a joke. We made a promise twenty-seven years ago to come back if it started again. Well, it has. Kids are disappearing, mutilated bodies turning up in the sewers, but no one is doing anything about it. There are talks about imposing a curfew, but you know how well that worked out last time. Please, Richie. We all need to be here.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Our group. The Losers’ Club. I suppose we’re just losers in name by now; everyone seems to have done pretty well in life. Just look at you.”

_Yeah, a comedian who supposedly does whatever he pleases, yet is terrified of being judged by other people. Really fucking successful. _“I don’t remember any of this, Mike.”

“I know it sounds strange, but you will. In fact, you and Bill have been floating around the same circles for years. You’re saying you’ve never met him?”

“Do you mean Bill Denbrough?”

Mike laughed. “Yes! You see, it’s already starting to come back to you. He’s an author but he’s started writing screenplays of late, especially for movie adaptations of his own books. He’s married to Audra Philips. I’m sure you’ve heard of her.”

Richie had heard of Audra. He didn’t know her personally, never having worked with her before, but from what he’d heard she seemed like a decent person—a rare trait in a star of her calibre. He hadn’t known she was married, though. “I don’t even read the instructions on the back of instant food packets, Mike.”

“I’m not asking you to read Bill’s books. I’m asking you to come back home. Back to Derry.”

“Jeez, you’re one persistent motherfucker, aren’t you?”

“So are you coming back or not?”

“Fine,” Richie sighed, fighting against a sudden bout of nausea. It felt like he had just signed his own death warrant.

“Thanks, Richie. By the way, I don’t know if this will mean anything to you, but I called Eddie before you.”

_Eddie. _The name tugged at Richie’s heartstrings in a way Mike and Bill’s hadn’t. There was something about this name that drew him in like a moth to flame, even as the rational part of his mind warned against it. The words spilled out from whatever deep, unknown part of him that Mike had unwittingly unlocked. “How is he doing? Does he still have asthma?”

“You remember Eddie, even after all this time?” Mike sounded both delighted and curious.

The makeup artist made a slashing gesture, a reminder that Richie was wasting time and indicating that he should hang up. The nausea spiked as fragments of old conversations bounced around his head. _“I can’t do this… we shouldn’t be doing this… My mother needs me, Richie…don’t touch the boys, Richie…”_

“No, I don’t,” he said flatly. “Bye.”

* * *

Mike had been right about one thing—it was a blessing that he didn’t remember everything. It had taken every ounce of Richie’s self-control to sit through the remaining preparations, to laugh and joke with the crew while fighting the urge to throw up. That hadn’t lasted either—he had forgotten his lines and bolted offstage like an amateur comedian overcome by nerves. He would probably have been more concerned about the fallout if he weren’t so sure that he wouldn’t be coming back from Derry alive.

He had gotten into his car and driven straight home at breakneck speed, ignoring the raised middle fingers and shouted curses as he wove in and out of traffic. He had turned off his phone to avoid calls from everyone he had run out on, but there was also the added bonus of avoiding Mike. He didn’t want to talk to Mike about what he remembered about Eddie, because it was starting to come back in bits and pieces, and he wished so badly that he could forget again.

Richie forced himself to focus on the logistics of flying back to Maine. Booking a flight on such short notice was going to be insanely expensive, but it wasn’t like he was hurting for cash and he might not live to make a return trip to California anyway. He rifled through his wallet for his credit card, ignoring the astronomical price displayed on the laptop screen as he clicked away to confirm his purchase. As he slid the card back into his wallet, his fingers closed on two glossy pieces of paper that had a completely different texture to that of dollar bills. He pulled them out and drew in a sharp breath.

He was looking at an old, faded photograph of two teenagers in a cap and gown. Even though they were dressed similarly, their postures were a study in contrast—the boy with glasses had one arm slung around the other boy’s shoulders and was brandishing his diploma with a huge, shit-eating grin on his face. The shorter boy, whose hair was neatly combed back, stood primly with the hint of a smile on his face. They were standing so close to each other that the brims of their caps were touching. He moved the other photograph to the front and saw the same two boys, this time wearing normal clothes. The boy with glasses was holding his diploma like a lightsaber and pretending to fight the other boy, who was smiling even as he tried to fend him off. Richie suddenly remembered how these photographs had come to be in his wallet.

He had made a big show of presenting his parents with the plane tickets, hamming it up with exaggerated actions and jokes about how the tropical weather would help increase their libido (_“and you’d better not come back with a sibling for me, because I’m not gonna be around to help with diaper duty and all of that shit.”)_. But after they had accepted the tickets and started packing for the trip, it had left him feeling even more out of sorts and depressed than ever. He had slouched around the house, unsure what to do with himself now that his life no longer revolved around school and Eddie. Theoretically, his parents hadn’t kicked him out and while he definitely didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in Derry, he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to leave. So he had spent his days stuffing more items in his bags and messing around with his car to ensure that it would be able to survive the long drive west—anything he could think of apart from actually getting in and driving off.

On the morning of what was supposed to have been his and Eddie’s grad trip, Richie had crawled out of bed at noon and slouched downstairs to raid the kitchen. He had found a stack of photographs on the table, with a note in his mother’s handwriting explaining that she had gotten the graduation photos developed so they could take even more photos in Hawaii. Richie had sorted through the photos, plucked the only two that mattered to him out of the pile, and stuck them into his wallet. By late afternoon, he had loaded his bags in the car and driven out of Derry with an old, unlit cigarette clasped between his lips.

_“You’re going to get cancer, Rich! Your lungs are going to shrivel up and you’ll spend your final moments coughing up blood. Didn’t you read the pamphlets they gave out in health class?”_

_“Only the ones related to STDs, but don’t worry. I won’t pass any on to your mom.”_

_“Fuck you, Trashmouth!”_

“Shit,” Richie whispered, running his fingers over the photos. “I guess I never really had a choice to begin with.”

He suddenly wished he had kept Mike on the phone long enough to ask if Eddie was coming. It would have been nice to know that he wasn’t walking toward certain death alone. What was Eddie doing? What did he look like now? Was he still living under the thumb of Mrs. Kaspbrak, or had he finally gotten the courage to tell her to fuck off? Maybe the desire to see Eddie again was the only thing pulling him back to Derry. It was certainly a lot more appealing than fulfilling whatever weird promise he had made as a kid.

_Don’t touch the boys, Richie._

“I won’t,” he said firmly.

_I’ll just look at him from afar._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very immature so writing Richie is just a matter of tapping into my inner 13-year-old boy and laughing at every single sexual innuendo. It's all fun and games until you delve into his issues and then the angst starts to overflow and it's not fun anymore :(  
Just wanted to say thank you to all the fanfic writers and artists for feeding me with that good ol' Reddie content, thank you 🙏


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